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Save Venice’s Masquerade Ball

“I didn’t realize it was a masked ball until today,” said dance chair Hannah Bronfman, laughing. “So I ran into Kiki de Montparnasse—I used to work there—and was like, ‘Guys, I need to borrow a mask! Do you have one?’ And they gave me this one!” She waved her hand in a display motion over her tassel-fringed mask.

However, other than Bronfman’s last-minute mask scramble, few guests at Save Venice’s Carnival, “A Night on the Lido,” held at the church-turned-venue hall at 583 Park Avenue, had forgotten that the event was a masquerade. In fact, winners of the annual mask contest, which was judged this year by the venerable Patrick McMullan, included a couple with two-foot-tall sandcastle masks with slits for eyes where the base of the turrets should be and an extremely heavy-looking beaded affair that seemed straight out of TheKing and I. One man tracked down an hors d’oeuvre tray wearing his wolf mask—replete with faux mink ears and pelts running down the back.

Models in spring looks from Badgley Mischka—the evening’s sponsor along with jeweler de Grisogono—preened on the stage twirling eyelet parasols, while Cornelia Guest in a bright Badgley coral number took her mask—handmade by the design house to match the dress, bien sûr—and speared the centerpiece with it, creating a more lively display.

After a chocolate molten cake was served for dessert, guests jumped to the dance floor, shimmying and spinning to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Cochair Adelina Wong Ettelson, wearing a Belle Époque–style beaded Badgley Mischka with long black gloves, joked, “I’m totally doing my Lady Mary!” Downton Abbey by way of the Lido!